


Orphan Theism

by valedecems



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Hurt Lucifer, Hurt Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV), Insecure Lucifer, Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer TV) Needs A Hug, Post-Devil Face Reveal to Chloe Decker, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 12:37:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22780219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valedecems/pseuds/valedecems
Summary: “I want you to want to show me who you are.”Chloe's seen his devil face by accident, now she wants to see it on his terms.Post-S3 finale
Relationships: Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar
Comments: 17
Kudos: 236





	Orphan Theism

Outside, the sky of Los Angeles is blanketed with darkness, the sparse and few clouds illuminated by spotlights making their meander across the stars. Inside, the penthouse Lucifer resides in is lit with a lamp that emits a soft orange light, poorly imitating the glow of a golden sunset. The light does not serve to make the room any brighter; in fact, it casts shadows across the room, looming and long, resembling the ghostly silhouettes of the people the devil had shattered.  
Outside, the world is loud and blurry. Inside, the thump of the bass from the music in the club below makes the quiet even quieter, and the loneliness lonelier.

He hears the whir of the lift before it chimes to announce an arrival. The noise sounds, the doors drag open, and Lucifer presses his ring finger down against the highest key of his piano. It makes a weak sound, an ethereal, precious sound, dainty and soft, and he hates it. If not for his visitor, he would splay his hand across the lowest notes and create a cacophonous symphony of chaos and discomfort. He can’t, though, so he returns to the highest key and presses it again.

“Lucifer,”

The word perforates his eardrums and sends needles through his mind. It doesn’t sound like his name. His name is to be spat, to drip with hatred, with a sneer and a repressed gag. Through her voice, it's a paradox of fear and calm, love and loathing, curiosity and the blatant yearning for a mind untainted by knowledge that breaks and shatters and destroys.

He doesn’t need to turn his head to know who is in his home. He doesn’t even need to hear her voice. The sound of her shoes on the floor, the rhythm of her gait, the hesitance between the inward breath and the outward word is telling enough. Chloe Decker has come to visit.

“You should leave,” he says. He has to fight through a film of liquor to push the words out. They aren’t smooth or chocolatey, they are jagged. He is raw. He won’t look at her; he can’t look at her, knowing that she knows what he is.

“I’m not going to,” she replies, with just a hint of defiance. The anxiety has disintegrated now. She is putting her cards onto the table, just as he had.

“I wasn’t asking,” his voice betrays him. It wobbles with emotion. He blames it on the whiskey, well aware that it doesn’t actually do much for him.

Lucifer tells himself that it was always going to be this way. She was always going to find a way to break him, and it was always going to hurt. He doesn’t expect pity nor virtue nor forgiveness – the act of his father forcing her into his life tells him that she is a punishment tailored form-fitting for his weaknesses. His father is still punishing him. For the death of his brother, his mother, for Cain, he has created this situation to give him one more glorious step toward heaven before he drags him back into the ground. It’s where he belongs.

She takes three steps. It only takes three. He counts them with his pulse. He knows she’s standing behind him. He can feel her energy, pulling his cells in like they are nothing more than opposing magnetic poles. It feels contrived and created.

He flinches at the hand on his shoulder. Objectively, it is gentle, but her touch sears through his suit and into his skin. He jerks and the piano’s highest note plays once again.

The touch poses a question, a request that seems so simple, but sends his mind into overdrive.

_Turn around_.

Seconds pass, and she doesn’t move. He relents, removes his hand from the piano, and lays his eyes on her.

She lets go and her hand falls to her side unceremoniously. It is not controlled, and she is not calm, she is not collected, but she is _certain_. Despite the poor lighting, her skin is aureate and her eyes are an intoxicating cerulean, deep like pools. If Lucifer looks at them for too long, he is certain he’ll drown. He stares at them anyway. She shines with a holy light, polished gold and encased in shining armour. When he looks at the hand she had placed on him, he expects to see it stained with the soot and ash he is covered in. It is not. For some reason, this disappoints him.

“Show me,” she says, and he’s sure he misheard her, but her expression does not betray an ulterior motive. His stomach turns. She is guileless, he is petrified. Lucifer’s body feels like it is on fire. Underneath it all, he is certain that it would be easier if she hated him, even though he burns with a sickening, consistent love for her. Her hatred is all he is worthy of – to love her is a blessing.

“Show me,” she repeats. It is not impatient or pressing, more resembling a reminder of what she had requested of him, a confirmation that his ears were not deceiving him.

Below them, he feels the song change from a frantic assembly of beats and bass to a melody he can’t make out. It is cohesive and slow, enticing him to bite the bullet, to show the darkest depths of himself and surrender the cowardice that grips at his throat and twists his oesophagus.

“Why?” He asks. The question is concise, but the single syllable wrenches out of his throat and bounces around the room.

“I want you to choose to,” her voice is quiet, or maybe it’s the blood rushing through his head that overpowers her soft words. “I want you to want to show me who you are.”

“I don’t know what I want,” the confession is bleak, and he’s not sure where it came from, but he anchors himself on her steady gaze, prepares for the worst, and feels his human skin shed, revealing the burned skin beneath. It is taut against his bones, stretched thin like tarpaulin. He sees his reflection in the shimmer of a glass behind her and winces. He is brutality personified, yet when he rests his gaze back on Chloe’s face, she is staring at him like he has grown great white wings and a dainty halo.

She reaches up and he tenses involuntarily. She pretends not to notice, grazing the tips of her fingers against his blistered, scar littered face. She traces a protruding, dull-blue vein down the side of his face, and he can only stare at her.

_I do not deserve this_ is drumming through his head, seeping through his skin. She deserves better, and it is eating him alive. He is chaining himself to the floor for a sin as old as – well, sin – and begging her not to unlock his cage, for he has not fulfilled his penance yet, but she touches him like he will shatter if she pushes too hard. Perhaps she is right. A tear shatters on the ground between them. He’s not sure if it’s his or hers.

“You should hate me,” there’s a tremble in the letters. In a moment, his human veil returns, molten eyes returning to their not-quite-black preset. She pulls her hand away tentatively, choosing instead to take his hand. He lets her.

“You saved me,” she reminds him. He hates the words, frustrated at the fact she can’t see him for what he is: a monster worthy of nothing more than disparage. At his grimace, she squeezes his hand. She will not be deterred. If she had it her way, she would wipe him of his shallow ideals about religion and heaven and the father he never had, but always wanted – she would wash his skin of the tar that seeped through his pores, never caring that she had to scrub to get it all out, as long as the self-loathing swirled down the drain afterwards. “Don’t run from me,” she speaks again, and another tear joins the first. He’s certain it’s his. “We can figure everything out, together.”

Lucifer swallows the lump in his throat and catches her eyes again. They are damp and wide and unapologetically hopeful. He wants to swim in them. “Okay,” he says. He sees his reflection in the light of her irises, and he is stained with a brilliant, golden sheen.


End file.
